


what are you so afraid of

by hairtiesoncuffs



Series: the way your love made me feel (human) [2]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Teen Romance, how do you tag, i promise he's doing his best, im so sorry i can't write peter to save my life, michelle jones still needs a hug, peter really really tries, right there's romance, scree, uh, uh there's another panic attack sorry, what the fudge am i doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24436057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hairtiesoncuffs/pseuds/hairtiesoncuffs
Summary: Tony nods. “I get it. It’s the way she smiles at you, the exasperated looks when you do something dumb, the way she squints when the sun gets in her face.”“Exactly,” Peter mumbles, nodding slowly. “Exactly like that. You know, all the little things about her.” He sighs, slumping back against the couch. “But she’s… I feel like I don’t deserve all of that, like I shouldn’t get to know that much about her. I don’t think I’m the person that should see that side of MJ, you know?”inspired by the song 'what are you so afraid of' by xxxtentacion
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: the way your love made me feel (human) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752070
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	what are you so afraid of

**Author's Note:**

> asdjksfl here's a sequel, sorry it took so long  
> there's another panic attack oops  
> i hope you like it :)

“Who’s that?”

The question in itself is innocent enough, but the person it’s coming from changes the meaning a little bit. Coming from Tony, it’s not him asking who it is, it’s him asking if she’s his girlfriend, which she’s not. (Not yet.)

Scarlet climbs up his neck and to his cheeks, the feeling almost like having coals pressed gently against the skin and making it heat up, the hypothetical pain almost as bad as the embarrassment he’s feeling is. “Just, um, a friend. From school.” He clears his throat nervously. “Her name is (Michelle, but that’s not the letters that come to his mouth) MJ.” 

He can sense the grin spreading wide on Tony’s face. “Oh? _Just_ a friend?”

Peter blushes harder, using one hand to card through his hair shoving it out of his face, an excuse to avoid Tony’s eyes. “Yeah, just- just a friend. I’m not, like, crushing on her or anything, that’s ridiculous, I’m-” He pauses, blows out a breath as Tony sits down on the couch next to him. He was going through his camera roll, absentmindedly scrolling through them before landing on one of their Academic Decathlon competitions, MJ and Ned, the latter grinning while MJ offered a smirk. (He loves that. The cool confidence, the attitude that _only_ she can pull off. Exhibit A, Flash.) “Yeah.”

“Yeah, you’re going to admit to me that you like her or yeah, she’s just a friend?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine, I like her.”

Tony claps him on the back, moving closer to Peter on the couch. “Great work, Pete, you chose a good one. What’s she like?”

“She’s amazing,” Peter blurts out. His eyes widen at the statement, but he’s been wanting to tell someone about her for so long. Ned, he knows, would probably tease him, same with May. But Tony, he’s… different. He’s Peter’s mentor, almost like a father. The words spill over his lips, rushing out faster than he can process what he’s saying. “She’s so incredibly smart and she doesn’t care what other people think about her and she’s so good at everything and I-” He pauses, mind finally catching up to his mouth. “I’ve never met anyone like her. Ever. I don’t think I will, either, and I don’t want to. I love who she is, not who other people think she has to be. Does that make sense?”

“You’re going for the rebels,” Tony says, approval in his voice.

“But it’s not that,” Peter says, pushing a hand through his hair frustratedly. “It’s not that, it’s just… I can’t explain it. But it’s _her_ , it’s just her and who she is.”

Tony nods. “I get it. It’s the way she smiles at you, the exasperated looks when you do something dumb, the way she squints when the sun gets in her face.”

“Exactly,” Peter mumbles, nodding slowly. “Exactly like that. You know, all the little things about her.” He sighs, slumping back against the couch. “But she’s… I feel like I don’t deserve all of that, like I shouldn’t get to know that much about her. I don’t think I’m the person that should see that side of MJ, you know?”

“Peter,” Tony starts, waiting for the teen to meet his eyes. “She’s lucky to have someone like you. You’re amazing. You’re smart, you’re fun, and you’re caring. You’re the type of person she should want to date.”

“You really think so?” Peter asks quietly, insecurities bubbling to the surface for just a moment.

“I know it, Peter. I’m serious,” Tony says, bringing the (his) kid into a hug. “If she’s the kind of person that makes you feel like that, and with you being the person you are…” He trails off, unsure how to continue. “Go for it.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Peter sits up only to throw himself back into the couch. “But she might be gay and I don’t know if she is or isn’t.”

Tony almost laughs at that. It takes a lot of effort, actually, to keep it back. “Has she shown any signs of liking girls?”

“It doesn’t seem like she likes anyone. I don’t know. There’s always a chance, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, eyes wide and earnest. His cheeks are still flushed, brown hair tousled and messy where his hands have gone through it. It’s the kind of look someone gets after going on a rant about something they’re passionate about, or just of plain frustration. 

“I think, if there’s a chance of her being gay, there’s also a chance of her not being gay,” Tony says after a beat. “So take it.”

Peter blows out a breath. “Sure, Mr. Stark. Sure.”

* * *

Of course, it’s not long before Tony clues the rest of them in on Peter’s crush. He’s woken up on Sunday morning by a grinning Natasha Romanoff and highly amused Clint Barton (who woke him up by jumping out of the vents and onto his bed, which, _rude, Clint, that’s not better than an alarm clock_ ), both of them absolutely _demanding_ to know everything. He shows them the picture of her and tells them the same things he does to Tony, explaining that she’s beautiful and smart and incredible so incredible, before he’s even out of his pajamas. They both smile and pat him on the back and tell him the same things Tony does, but it doesn’t make Peter look forward to it. In fact, with all the encouragement he’s getting from the others in the Tower, it’s making him dread it even more. Everyone makes it out to be this momentous occasion, even a watershed in his life because according to Steve, “It’s always the second one.” He said this with a small side-eye towards Bucky, something Peter can interpret but won’t yet.

He thinks he’s managed to avoid the worst of it when he’s about halfway through his day, having spent most of it with Tony in the lab. Morgan and Pepper are busy, something to do with a birthday party since Tony and Pepper decided she was at the age where she should be socializing with other people her age and not being homeschooled by them anymore. 

It’s over a piece of toast he’s eating for a snack that he remembers that Sundays are movie nights, a perfect close to the weekend. However, it includes all the Avengers, has them pile into the living room with popcorn and blankets and typically ends with half of them throwing popcorn at each other and various Avengers screaming at each other over the movies. The only words that could be used to describe it was ‘organized chaos’, but even that didn’t quite fit.

“Guys, it’s just a crush,” Peter says, trying to protest them, but they’re all telling him it’s more, more, more. (It might be, but he doesn’t want to think about that. He’s in high school. Relationships fall apart in seconds.)

Sam snorts. “Pretty sure it’s more than that, Peter.”

“Agreed,” Wanda says, a smile playing at her lips behind her book. 

Peter whines as they all continue to tease him, curled up under the blankets that are distributed around their laps, the movie they were watching paused on the screen. He even goes so far as to bring the blanket up and over his face, all while screaming at them that MJ’s just a crush, it wouldn’t go anywhere anyway, _shut up it’s not a big deal._

Of course, they all laugh at that and continue to tease him, but in the way he’s missed that he knows is supposed to feel like family. It’s the kind of laugh that you can tell is out of care, out of _love_ for the person that’s being laughed at. It’s nice.

Peter rolls his eyes and shoves them lightly, good-naturedly, begging for them to stop and regretting ever telling Tony that he had a crush. They were just going to push him towards it until he told her, he could tell.

Surrounded by his more-than-teammates, Peter makes a decision. Sure, he’s subconsciously made it already, but really acknowledging it makes the difference.

It’s not a promise, but it’s close enough that Peter’s going to try to keep it.

* * *

Of course, of course, of course. Why, he wonders, does it have to be like this?

He’s trying to breathe, so hard, but his lungs are frozen, still, held by some invisible force that prevents them from moving properly, crushed by the ceiling above him that’s no longer the ceiling. It’s squishing him like the tiny spider he is, all the weight bearing down on him and Tony’s voice, stern and detached and angry, angry at him, telling him he’s _nothing without the suit_.

He has no idea what’s going on. He’d been hoping to catch MJ before class, asking Mr. Stark to drop him off early, but most of the lights were still off because most of the students arrived a little later and he doesn’t know but it was too dark and-

The door opens and the frozen feeling spreads, locking his limbs in place. There’s suddenly a flood beyond his eyelids and he manages to look up as footsteps draw closer to him. He’s pretty sure the lock on the door clicks before a familiar voice speaks up. “So.”

Peter can’t hear his own voice, but he’s pretty sure he greets MJ. He knows that he’s trying to act like he’s not panicking, doesn’t want her to think of him differently after this because there’s no way she’s going to want to be with someone like this-

(But Pepper’s with Tony, isn’t she?)

“Alright, loser. You’ve got air, okay,” MJ says, calmly, not a hint of fear or worry in her voice. (It’s the kind of collected calm that makes him, absently, the thought not really registering, think she’s dealt with this before.) “There’s air around you, I swear. Just breathe in and out with me.” She starts counting him off, voice soft and soothing, making his stuttered gasps even out as she grabs his wrist, maybe so he has physical contact with someone living? He doesn’t know her intentions, nor does he care. She’s helping him, she knows _how_ to help him, and that’s valuable. 

When the last of it drips away he sags, a little, exhausted, lungs tired and cold, so cold, but this time because of the air that he’s bringing into them. Still, he manages to smile, guilt mixing in with genuine appreciation, at MJ. “Sorry.”

A small, slightly derisive grunt pushes out before her words do. “Don’t apologize.” (He should, he really should, he took up her time and-) “It’s normal enough, you know?” (He knows. Peter knows too well, in fact, has seen it in him and in every single one of his teammates.) His head dips in acknowledgement, eyes flitting to hers for a moment. “You’re going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, I just- I need a minute.”

She’s the one who nods this time, and sits with him in silence until they can both hear their classmates pouring into the hallway and he stands up. “See you around,” MJ calls as he exits, nearly running into Abe.

Ned’s waiting at the lockers for him. “Hey, dude, you okay?” he asks, clearly seeing the exhaustion that’s pulling at Peter’s features.

“Yeah, man, I’m fine. Just, you know, with the whole-” he mimes shooting his webs “-it just gets stressful, handling that and school.”

Ned smiles sympathetically. “Got it. Tell me if you need anything, alright?”

“Of course.”

For some reason, it still feels like MJ’s eyes are burning into him, even though his spidey-sense tells him nothing is wrong.

* * *

MJ doesn’t notice him approaching, too busy with arranging what looks like the flashcards for today’s practice. Still, to her credit, she doesn’t move an inch when he suddenly speaks up. Perhaps she already knew he was there, but there’s no way of knowing. “MJ.”

“Peter,” she responds, not unkindly, her back facing him.

“I just wanted to apologize for Monday-”

“It’s nothing,” she says, probably supposed to be reassuring, but with the front she puts up he can’t tell. (MJ doesn’t want to be seen as caring, he thinks, or maybe it’s that she doesn’t want to care in the first place. It’s not about how she appears, she doesn’t care about that, it’s about how _she_ feels about her friendships.)

He tries again, trying to apologize in words that MJ will grasp the true meaning from. “Still, you didn’t need to see me like that-”

She cuts him off, saying, “It happens to the worst of us,” and looking to immediately want to take back the words as soon as they come out. (Something tells him this is wrong, that MJ always knows exactly what she’s saying.)

(Is this what she thinks of him?)

He must say something close to that out loud, he’s not quite sure, but MJ finally turns around, and, looking him dead in the eye, says, “I meant me.”

That’s not what he was expecting. Her words hit something, tear it open, and words are suddenly flowing past his lips with no filter. _“You?_ Of all people, you have panic attacks? But you have nothing-” Peter manages to shut up, wanting to smack himself. He knows (nothing, he knows nothing about her or her home life or anything that’s happened to make MJ who she is) that it’s not always obvious, that people don’t talk about everything, that she was a victim of the Snap as well. “Sorry.” He wants to stay more, but it’s now that all his words tangle up.

“Just shut up,” she responds, turning back away from him as he takes his seat. Anything Flash tries to say to him doesn’t register, and to be honest, he doesn’t care about it either. There are more important things to focus on, like his realization about MJ. (That’s... that’s pretty high on his list of priorities, right? He should try to figure out not why she has panic attacks, but instead unravel why she told him, out of all people.)

At some point, the practice just dissolves since it’s clear to everyone that MJ’s distracted, even though she claims she’s fine. It’s basic trivia, stuff they’ve gone over plenty of times before and all know. Betty catches his eye, mouthing, ‘Is she okay?’ from across the table. He shrugs. 

(He’s closest to her out of all of them.)

Peter manages to catch her when practice ends, trying to apologize, telling her he really didn’t mean to imply that she didn’t have a reason, she _turned to dust_ (so did he), but he doesn’t get much of a chance. She stops him, saying, “Peter. Shut up, okay? It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Now, what would you say if you _hadn’t_ screwed up?”

And somehow, with a sudden rush of courage, he takes a hammer to his heart and waits for her to reject him.

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I’ll go on a date with you.”

* * *

They don’t actually go on a date.

He’s not surprised. May isn’t either, given what she knows about MJ. She still smiles at him and touches his shoulder softly and warns him to go carefully. Life, he knows, has changed drastically for a lot of people after the Snap and the Blip. (He knows nothing about MJ’s home life.) What happened five years ago scared people. It’ll cause them to be cautious. It’s understandable why MJ texts him that night saying she can’t actually go on a date with him yet, but yes, she can and will start considering him as her boyfriend.

(She says nothing about her being his girlfriend. For now, he assumes that’s just her personality. He doesn’t know anything else.)

It’s a few days later, nearing the end of the week, when he asks if she wants to come over. He knows he starts rambling about her getting her parent’s permission and he has to say something wrong, because MJ cuts him off, eyes guarded.

“One- it’ll be fine. My mom doesn’t really care where I go, as long as I come back,” she starts, reassuring his worries. (He doesn’t have time to think that it’s strange that her mom doesn’t care where she goes, doesn’t she understand how dangerous the city is, he’s seen it firsthand, because of what MJ says next.) “Two- I haven’t seen my father in twelve years. You don’t need to worry about him.”

MJ is sixteen. He knows this. So that means she hasn’t seen her father since she was _four._ (He hasn’t, technically, either, but still.) Peter can’t help but wonder if there’s a reason for it, if he just left or if her mom made him leave or if he died, he doesn’t know. It’s not his place to ask, though, she’ll tell him if he needs to know. “Oh. Oh my God, MJ, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I’m open about that shit, you know?” She sighs, tired, heavy. “But yes, I would love to come over. It’ll be nicer than eating dinner alone, y’know?”

 _How often do you eat dinner alone for it to sound so casual?_ Her voice makes it out to be a normal occurrence, like it happens every day, like he should know exactly what it’s like. It’s not a big deal, not to her. But… 

He almost bites his lip. May always waits until he gets home from patrol to eat dinner with him, so that they can sit down and talk about their day. It happens with Mr. Stark, too, whether it’s the two of them in the lab or with everyone at a table, but he’s never really had dinner alone. He even calls May before bed whenever he’s at the Tower.

Peter finds himself nodding, even though he doesn’t get it. He tells her that he’s going to check with May, make sure that she’s okay with MJ coming over for dinner, (doesn’t tell her that he’s going to tell May every word of their conversation) and watches his girlfriend’s back as she pulls away from him and walks ahead of him, head up and shoulders back, into the school.

She’s alone.

She’s so alone.

* * *

The evening really can’t go any better. 

He wants to believe that badly. Peter can see the way MJ holds herself, tense and cautious, keeping parts of herself tucked away. Almost as if she’s afraid that May won’t approve, like these little bits are condemnable. Which, no, May’s always been open-minded about other people and their interests. Still, MJ keeps herself together as much as she can, despite some of her defining characteristics sliced off and laying behind her on the floor.

He works at her, taking glue and staples and even a needle and thread to her, using everything he can to try and make her _her_ again, to let MJ know it’s okay to be who she is here, that no one’s going to judge her or disapprove. (It’s weird, thinking of her this way. She’s always so calm and collected and assured it never occurred to him that maybe it was because she was ripping all her seams to pieces, letting herself spill out and replacing them with a different version of herself. The one, he will later realize, that she views as MJ. It’s Michelle that she tucks away.)

The glue appears as a game of Uno, those of which MJ keeps winning. He watches her as she slaps cards down triumphantly and smirks when he does something that works to her advantage. He can sense her confidence folding back into her, burrowing itself in her eyes and mouth and adding to the dimple on the right side when she smiles and the calculating look in her eyes as she stares at her cards.

The staples take form in the questions May asks MJ over dinner, welcoming her into their space by performing the usual series of inquiries she aims at Peter after he gets home from school, although with a few additions to get to know MJ better. Of course, this is preceded by MJ taking one look at their meal and saying quietly, “Somebody toucha my _spaghet_ ,” which makes Peter crack up because he’s never seen MJ as the kind of person who would actually care about memes. 

The needle and thread close up the evening, stitches weaving them together as he walks MJ home, admiring the way the streetlights set fires in her eyes, lighting the spark joy in her eyes and in true fighting-fire-with-fire fashion, Peter gathers her into his arms and whispers that he loves her into her ear, a smile splitting his face open as his emotions tumble out.

“I love you too, loser,” she replies. (She’s the only person who can make an insult sound like a term of endearment.) He kisses her softly on the cheek, watching as she walks into her building and doesn’t head home, he goes into an alleyway and changes into his suit and then sits on a rooftop until the sun is peeking over the tops of the buildings. 

He can’t believe how lucky he is. He’s dating Michelle Jones, out of all people, someone he’s known is too good for him for years and could have picked anyone else but she chose him. (She chose him, she trusted him, she’s _trusting_ him and showing him parts of her she hasn’t shown anyone else and he just can’t believe any of this is real.)

But then Peter remembers what happened last night and knows that it is.

* * *

He doesn’t understand why MJ doesn’t tell her mom. Peter arrives at her house and is immediately shoved to the side of a hushed argument that is spoken in stern tones and countered by MJ’s anger mixed with… is that just the slightest hint of a pleading tone? There’s no way.

Her smile is wobbly when she finally steps outside (her mom didn’t say anything to him, no warnings, nothing, unlike what May had told him to expect) and he brushes her arm gently. “It’s okay?”

She nods once, speaking quietly. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

MJ’s quiet as they walk to the restaurant, eyes downcast and hair in her face. (He can’t tell if it’s on purpose, a wall of some sort, or inadvertent. Still, it blocks him from seeing her facial expressions or being able to read her, not that she was made of something as fragile as paper in the first place.) His hand is gripping hers gently, and he doesn’t know if she realizes how cold her hands are compared to his.

It takes some time for him to bring it up, but when he does, the ice in MJ’s mouth cracks at the same time as her tough exterior and it all comes out. (He thought she didn’t give a damn about what anybody else thought, but that has its limits.) How desperate she is to have this to herself, to have this one thing in a world where everything she has done was her own so when her mom does see, it’s too much and MJ can’t deal. She’s always been so fiercely independent and now…

(Walls, walls, walls, everyone has walls and all the walls fall for someone.)

He reaches out, rubbing her palm gently as she pulls herself back together, stuffs everything back inside and stifles it when she rubs her eyes, destroying the tears that were building up there. (He has never, ever seen her like this and couldn’t even imagine it.) She apologizes (for what?) and he doesn’t know how to respond and instead just smiles, trying to keep most of the sadness and revelations out of it.

(Somehow, seeing MJ that vulnerable isn’t the biggest shock of the night.)

They fall back into easy conversation, jumping from topic to topic and eventually landing on Peter’s internship and stepping farther out onto that branch to Avengers memes, many of which come from Peter’s ‘Personal Intern to Tony Stark’ account. (He’s particularly proud of the Avenger’s New Groove one.)

He’s in the middle of explaining one of the videos when MJ speaks up.

“Do you ever get to talk to Spider-Man?”

The question is so unexpected it takes Peter a second to recover from it. He barely manages to stammer out an answer, something suspicious that MJ hopefully won’t catch onto, but knowing her, that’s not even in the realm of possibility. “Y-yeah, sometimes, h-he’s just busy a lot of the time, with- with other things, you know? Since he’s not officially an Avenger or anything-”

She laughs lightly. “Loser. I already knew.”

Peter frantically decides to defend himself; there’s no way she knows he’s Spider-Man (she didn’t even accuse him of being Spider-Man, just said that she knew). “What? No. No, no, no. It’s not like that, I’m not- how would _I_ be Spider-Man, that’s _not even funny-_ ” All it takes is one eyebrow and he shuts his mouth. “Yeah. Sure, whatever. You got me.”

“Anyone ever tell you I know everything?” she asks, a small smile curling along her lips, laced with sarcasm like it’s a deadly poison.

He sighs, defeated, surrendering to her. “I mean, you just did, so…” 

Barely ten minutes later, her lips are pressed against his and maybe she doesn’t know everything, because it’s clear she had no idea he was going to do this. Peter can feel the shock zipping through MJ’s veins, softening her lips into something sweet and for just a second they’re breathing the same air and-

She practically tears her lips off of his, shifting her weight from one foot to the other in the time it takes him to recover, clearing his throat and smiling. Peter’s eyes meet hers, a beautiful chocolate brown that dances in the illumination tossed about by the streetlights. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she breathes, voice soft and rich before he kisses her one more time and walks away.

(May celebrates for the next thirty minutes when he gets home. He assumes MJ has told no one.)

* * *

He steals moments from her. She gives and takes and he takes and gives and they are one and the same and yet so different it’s almost unbelievable how they work. Peter feels like he’s flying whenever he gets back from being with her, like the air could swoop him up and take him away any second. (Is this what love feels like? If so, how do people ever deal with breakups?)

Their second date is (just) a walk through Central Park where MJ’s hand stays in his the entire time. Unknown to her, he is studying it. The long, artist’s fingers that could easily play piano if she wanted to. The callouses on her palms from who-knows-what. The bitten fingernails she’s made no effort to smooth out. How cold it is, and the way all he wants to do is warm her up.

Their third isn’t really a date, it’s more of a sleepover. (A sleepover where MJ has a panic attack. All Peter knows is that they are watching Big Hero 6 on his laptop and all of the sudden MJ is hyperventilating and tears are slipping down her cheeks and she’s clenching her hands into fists, the stubs of her nails pressing into her palms as he brings her closer, gently forces her hand out of a fist and presses it to his heart, makes sure she knows he is alive, that she is alive.) He wraps her up in a blanket and her head lands on his chest, one hand grabbing onto the fabric. Peter is aware of how fragile she is, how fucked the Snap and the Blip left everyone, and brings MJ in a little closer as her breaths even out and she trips into sleep. (When she wakes up, her hair is tangled into his hands and she makes toast.)

Their fourth happens two weeks after the third, a month and a half after they have started dating. MJ comes out of the school building with a red mark on her cheek and only says one word, one name, and he-

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” MJ says to him, arms crossed over her chest in what he can only assume is a defense. The mark is swelling already, big and angry and while it will go away, the effects might not. He knows MJ is a little weird about being kissed or hugged or touched in general and he tries his best to make sure he has consent each time because he hates the stiff way she’ll greet his hugs before relaxing into him. He knows there’s a reason for it, he knows he would never hit MJ but Flash will and she’s shaking. 

(Later, she will explain to him as they sit in the darkness of his room, backs pressed to the floor, that her dad was a bastard and took advantage of her mom. That she was made this way, through means she doesn’t like to even think about. That her dad left soon after she was born because he didn’t really love her mom. That she is a mistake and shouldn’t even be on this planet.

Peter will sit up at that and try to reassure her, but MJ just shakes her head and goes home soon after. He thinks he’s messed it all up until she texts him, at three in the morning, to apologize and then doesn’t answer her phone for the next two days and he has to talk to her on Monday at school.)

He pulls away from the hug and this time she whispers that she loves him first.

* * *

Tony demands to meet her and the rest of the Avengers soon back him up. Natasha, in particular, wants to meet MJ to either warn her to be good to him or feel free to smack him upside the head every once in a while. It’s with great reluctance he gets into the elevator with her, telling F.R.I.D.A.Y. to take him to the penthouse and to not mention MJ’s with him. The scene they step out onto is less than impressive; Vision is watching Thor put his PopTarts in the toaster, Wanda is reading, Sam is snickering at Bucky, whose hair is being braided by Natasha while Clint falls out of the vent the second the elevator doors open. 

“So these are the people who save our city on a regular basis,” MJ says, completely deadpan.

Peter grins as Tony walks over to them, offering a miniscule nod to Peter. “Darn right we are.”

“Hi. I’m Michelle,” she says, almost glaring at him. “You don’t need an introduction. Peter’s my boyfriend. I am not his girlfriend. (She does not belong to him and he does not belong to her but Peter knows how much she hates that label and lets her have this.) Got it?”

“I like her,” Clint comments as Sam grins.

“So you’re the one who’s caught Peter’s heart, haven’t you?” Tony says, a smirk on his face as he meets MJ’s eyes, which are hard and he can see the tension coiling under her skin. “Be careful with him, he still needs his hot chocolate blown on.” 

“That was _one time,_ ” Peter hisses, glaring at his mentor. Tony laughs and ruffles his hair affectionately, pulling him into a quick hug.

“Remember the time you got gummy bears all over the lab and U, DUM-E, and you had to clean up while you got Bruce to distract Tony?” Wanda adds, grinning at the memory. Peter knows what she’s talking about, but Tony still doesn’t know what actually happened and now-

“You did _what_?” Tony demands, wheeling on Peter. He jumps onto the ceiling, hoping that Tony doesn’t get out the broom because he really doesn’t need MJ to see that.

But when he looks down at her, there is only a wide smile on her face, tension melting under the easy banter. “I need to hear this.” 

Wanda starts recounting the events enthusiastically, the rest of the bunch joining in and telling her random anecdotes he can only get so embarrassed about before he starts whining and begging them to stop. The whole time, MJ’s eyes are dancing with laughter and she even contributes with a couple of her own stories about him, particularly the time where he crawled into class through a window on the first floor when he was late. (No one questioned it, by the way, thank you very much.) He threatens to web all their mouths shut before he remembers that MJ could probably find a way to outsmart him.

* * *

They fly. It’s his best moment with her, when they are brushing against the sky and drinking stars and he can hear the wind mingling with Michelle’s laughter because they belong to the galaxy and to each other and because they are home. He is here, with Michelle, his girlfriend and he can barely breathe around the joy that stirs in his chest.

True love, he knows, is when you love someone not despite their flaws, but because of them. True love is when you take in every part of a person and pour yourself into them. True love is when you are willing to do anything to hear their laughter. 

True love is impossible to really put in words. 

It’s the curve of her wrist when his hand moves over it. It’s the sun shining on her eyelashes. It’s the lingering second where he can’t breathe after he kisses her. It’s every millisecond he spends with her and every minute he counts down until he can see her again.

True love flutters in moments, like the beat of a heart.

But every heart must stop beating.

* * *

In his defense, he doesn’t mean to almost die.

It’s just, there was so much fire and the kid, and he couldn’t let her be swallowed up by the flames, they were already licking at her and taking their first taste of pain. She was too young, scars of trauma snaking up her legs in the form of fire as she screamed, sobbed, begging for someone to help her. 

He didn’t have a choice. He swung in, grabbed her, and headed out as fast as he could. But flames, people don’t know just how fast they can grow, just how hungry they are and he doesn’t know anything else except for the night dissolving into the sun and pain. So much pain that he couldn’t even feel it.

(She made it. Somehow. He doesn’t know, he can’t remember, but the kid made it.)

He really doesn’t remember anything in the two days where he’s practically dead due to the dosage of painkillers he is given (the ones that Tony made for Steve before) and wakes up to lights in his eyes and Pepper’s hand gracing his wrist. Tony comes into the room not a minute later and immediately starts yelling about how dangerous that was and hugs him. It’s almost an hour after he wakes up that he remembers MJ and asks Pepper.

“She knows.”

“When can I-”

“One more day. That’s it. We just need to make sure you’re okay.”

“Okay.”

“We almost lost you, Peter.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Can you really promise that?”

“I’ll try to.”

“Please.”

“I know.”

But when he goes over to her house on Thursday, she screams at him and tells him she can’t do this. She can’t. “We’re done.”

He tries to apologize, but the door slams in his face and he’s locked out of MJ’s heart, her day, her life and there’s no key he could get that would open it back up.


End file.
